Grocery stores, hardware stores and other merchants recently began using flexible plastic bags as containers for customers' purchases. The transition from paper bags to plastic bags can be attributed to many reasons, including economies of cost, storage and transportation space, and the facts that plastic bags have handles and do not rip or tear as easily as paper bags. Whatever the cause is for this change, plastic bags differ from paper bags in one major respect: they cannot support themselves while being filled with merchandise. Accordingly, plastic bags require merchants to utilize bag dispensers to store such bags and to hold them open in a convenient manner while being filled with merchandise.
Shopping bag dispensers formed of wire are frequently used to support such bags. Sides of such racks support the walls of the shopping bag being filled and have at their upper extremeties suspending means about which bag handles may be placed while a bag is being filled.
Wire bag dispensers are usually mounted at the ends of checkout counters or other places where the bags they contain can be easily loaded and easily picked up and carried off by the customer. For this reason and because the dispensers are typically mounted lower than waist high, checkout personnel and customers sometimes bump into the dispensers.